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Knowledge Quotes

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Knowledge Quotes

“To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities.”

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Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
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“Explicit knowledge, conventionally delivered like pizza (neat boxes with toppings of concepts, theories, best practices and war stories), is consumed by the brain but not metabolized into action. The learning we call intuition, know-how and common sense gets into the blood stream through osmosis. It is shaped by social context.”

KnowsWarStoriesActionSocialCommonBrainKnowledgePracticeKnow HowLearningBloodTheoryConceptsManagementBoxesIntuitionCommon SenseStreamsConsumedPizzaNeatExplicitToppingsWar StoriesBest PracticesOsmosis
Book:The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems
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“Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.”

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Author:Samuel Johnson
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“I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.”

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Author:Lord Chesterfield
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“Of course, you don't have to have a degree to be rich. You just have to have ideas. Maybe having a degree sets you back, for it stuffs you into tick-tock [the daily grind of work], and perhaps that stifles your creative mind. But the fact is that many millionaires have few educational qualifications of any kind at all. However, they still have knowledge. The difference is, they have knowledge they can sell, and others have the "common knowledge" of tick-tock, which isn't worth as much, if anything at all.”

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Author:Stuart Wilde
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“From inability to let well alone; from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old; from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art and cleverness before common sense; from treating patients as cases; and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, Good Lord, deliver us.”

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Author:Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet
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“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”

PersonsBeliefSocialReligiousAbilityCommonKnowledgeSpecialAwarenessEgoSelf AwarenessPossessionAppearanceRecognitionCollectivesIdentificationBelief SystemsPower Of NowFamily HistorySpiritual AwarenessEducation And KnowledgeSocial StatusPhysical AppearanceNationalisticStillness SpeaksPower Of Now Book
Author:Eckhart Tolle
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“The end of the Cold War removed the immediate causes of whole destruction but not the threat contained in our knowledge. We must tame this knowledge with the ideals of justice, caring, and compassion summoned from our common human spiritual and moral heritage, if we are to live in peace and serenity in the twenty-first century.”

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Author:Mahnaz Afkhami
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“The books of the great scientists are gathering dust on the shelves of learned libraries. And rightly so. The scientist addresses an infinitesimal audience of fellow composers. His message is not devoid of universality but its universality is disembodied and anonymous. While the artist's communication is linked forever with its original form, that of the scientist is modified, amplified, fused with the ideas and results of others and melts into the stream of knowledge and ideas which forms our culture. The scientist has in common with the artist only this: that he can find no better retreat from the world than his work and also no stronger link with the world than his work.”

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Author:Max Delbruck
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“Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.”

IfsMenWayHumansStoriesWould BeActionPastLawSciencePoliticalSocialNaturalInterestingCommonExistenceKnowledgeHistoryEconomyStudyEffectsCuriosityGuidesUselessSatisfyingBehaviourNatural LawUniformitySocial SciencePolitical EconomyHuman BehaviourInteresting Stories
Author:Vilfredo Pareto
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“Knowledge is like a knife. In the hands of a well-balanced adult it is an instrument for good of inestimable value; but in the hands of a child, an idiot, a criminal, a drunkard or an insane man, it may cause havoc, misery, suffering and crime. Science and religion have this in common, that their noble aims, their power for good, have often, with wrong men, deteriorated into a boomerang to the human race.”

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Author:Leo Baekeland
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“At first he who invented any art that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility.”

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Book:Pocket Aristotle
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“I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.”

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Book:The Life and Letters of Faraday
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“No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.”

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Book:The Great Instauration
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“Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks it own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds.”

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Author:Charles Babbage
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“Science and religion...are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there's a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don't agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if people in this so-called 'scientific age' knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they'd find it easier to share my views.”

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Author:John Polkinghorne
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“We find that one of the most rewarding features of being scientists these days ... is the common bond which the search for truth provides to scholars of many tongues and many heritages. In the long run, that spirit will inevitably have a constructive effect on the benefits which man can derive from knowledge of himself and his environment.”

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Author:Stanford Moore
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“If the question were, "What ought to be the next objective in science?" my answer would be the teaching of science to the young, so that when the whole population grew up there would be a far more general background of common sense, based on a knowledge of the real meaning of the scientific method of discovering truth.”

IfsRealWholeWould BeYoungScienceNextAnswersCommonKnowledgeTeachingGrewOughtGrew UpAccountsMethodPopulationBackgroundsObjectivesCommon SenseDiscoveringScientific Method
Author:Elihu Thomson
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“What the founders of modern science ... had to do, was not criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, and a new concept of science - and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.”

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Author:Alexandre Koyre
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“The big idea we start with is: "How is the genome interpreted, and how are stable decisions that affect gene expression inherited from one cell to the next?" This is one of the most competitive areas of molecular biology at the moment, and the students are reading papers that in some instances were published this past year. As a consequence, one of the most common answers I have to give to their questions is, "We just don't know."”

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Author:Shirley M. Tilghman
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“...monetary exchanges have interesting things in common; Gresham's law, if true, says what one of these interesting things is. But what is interesting about monetary exchanges is surely not their commonalities under physical description. A natural kind like a monetary exchange could turn out to be co-extensive with a physical natural kind; but if it did, that would be an accident on a cosmic scale.”

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Author:Jerry Fodor
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“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

WorldLifeInspirationalWisdomDecisionCommonKnowledgeWords Of WisdomDegreesCommon SenseSense Of HumorBeing WiseWisestUncommonKnowledge WisdomLife WisdomKnowledge And WisdomWisest ManFools And WiseWise Wisdom
Book:The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Preface. Formula fidei de ss. Trinitate. Nightly prayer. Notes on the book of common prayer; Hooker; Field; Donne; Henry More; Heinrichs; Hacket; Jeremy Taylor; The pilgrim's progress; John Smith. Letter to a godchild
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“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

MenWorldInspirationalMotivationalHappinessSuccessPeaceCommonEducationKnowledgeLearningTalentStrengthThis WorldFailureGeniusDeterminationPerseveranceIntelligenceEducatedPersistenceMore TimePersistEncouragingSeekersPersevereTenacityLife GoalUnsuccessfulOmnipotentPerserveranceDetermination And SuccessWill And DeterminationDetermination MotivationalOvercoming FailureNetwork MarketingFailure In LifeDetermination PerseveranceEye OpeningPerseverance And DeterminationInspirational PerseveranceDetermination And PersistenceGreat PerseveranceGreat DeterminationInspirational DeterminationPerseverenceKey ThingsPersistence InspirationalTalent And GeniusDrive And SuccessMotivational CareerMotivational JobMotivation And DeterminationLife DeterminationCourage And DeterminationPatience And PersistenceDrive And DeterminationPerseverance MotivationalPerseverance In LoveMotivation And DriveDerelictPersistence In BusinessPersistence LoveAdversity And PerseverancePerseverance SportsPersistence And LoveDedication And DeterminationWasted TalentSearch Motivational
Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion wrighteous stupidityill be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.”

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Book:In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years
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